55 Facts About Oklahoma

Oklahoma is known informally by its nickname, "The Sooner State", in reference to the settlers who staked their claims on land before the official opening date of lands in the western Oklahoma Territory or before the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which increased European-American settlement in the eastern Indian Territory.

Oklahoma is at a confluence of three major American cultural regions.

Major producer of natural gas, oil, and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology.

Name Oklahoma comes from the Choctaw language phrase, 'people', and, translated as 'red'.

Oklahoma envisioned an all–American Indian state controlled by the United States Superintendent of Indian Affairs.

Related searches

Oklahoma later became the de facto name for Oklahoma Territory, and it was officially approved in 1890, two years after that area was opened to white settlers.

Spiro Mounds, in what is Spiro, Oklahoma, was a major Mississippian mound complex that flourished between AD 850 and 1450.

In 1995, Oklahoma City was the site of the most destructive act of domestic terrorism in American history.

Oklahoma is between the Great Plains and the Ozark Plateau in the Gulf of Mexico watershed, generally sloping from the high plains of its western boundary to the low wetlands of its southeastern boundary.

Oklahoma has four primary mountain ranges: the Ouachita Mountains, the Arbuckle Mountains, the Wichita Mountains, and the Ozark Mountains.

Southwestern Oklahoma contains many rare, disjunct species including sugar maple, bigtooth maple, nolina and Texas live oak.

Oklahoma has fifty-one state parks, six national parks or protected regions, two national protected forests or grasslands, and a network of wildlife preserves and conservation areas.

Oklahoma's federally protected parks or recreational sites, the Chickasaw National Recreation Area is the largest, with 9, 898.

Oklahoma is in a humid subtropical region which lies in a transition zone between semi-arid further to the west, humid continental to the north, and humid subtropical to the east and southeast.

Humid subtropical climate of central, southern and eastern Oklahoma is influenced heavily by southerly winds bringing moisture from the Gulf of Mexico.

In 2010, Oklahoma was divided into 77 counties and contains 597 incorporated municipalities consisting of cities and towns.

In Oklahoma, cities are all those incorporated communities which are 1, 000 or more in population and are incorporated as cities.

Oklahoma is part of a geographical region characterized by conservative and Evangelical Christianity known as the "Bible Belt".

Oklahoma has been described as "the world's prison capital", with 1, 079 of every 100, 000 residents imprisoned in 2018, the highest incarceration rate of any state, and by comparison, higher than the incarceration rates of any country in the world.

Oklahoma is host to a diverse range of sectors including aviation, energy, transportation equipment, food processing, electronics, and telecommunications.

Oklahoma is an important producer of natural gas, aircraft, and food.

Oklahoma is the nation's third-largest producer of natural gas, and its fifth-largest producer of crude oil.

Oklahoma Stack Play is a geographic referenced area in the Anadarko Basin.

Oklahoma spent $7, 755 for each student in 2008, and was 47th in the nation in expenditures per student, though its growth of total education expenditures between 1992 and 2002 ranked 22nd.

Oklahoma holds eleven public regional universities, including Northeastern State University, the second-oldest institution of higher education west of the Mississippi River, containing the only College of Optometry in Oklahoma and the largest enrollment of Native American students in the nation by percentage and amount.

Related searches

The Oklahoma Legislature had passed a measure a week earlier to raise teacher salaries by $6, 100, but it fell short of the $10, 000 raise for teachers, $5, 000 raise for other school employees, and $200 million increase in extra education funding many had sought.

Oklahoma is placed in the South by the United States Census Bureau, but other definitions place the state at least partly in the Southwest, Midwest, Upland South, and Great Plains.

Sixty-seven Native American tribes are represented in Oklahoma, including 39 federally recognized tribes, who are headquartered and have tribal jurisdictional areas in the state.

Oklahoma is in the nation's middle percentile in per capita spending on the arts, ranking 17th, and contains more than 300 museums.

Oklahoma City is home to a few reoccurring events and festivals.

Oklahoma has teams in several minor leagues, including Minor League Baseball at the Triple-A and Double-A levels, hockey's ECHL with the Tulsa Oilers, and a number of indoor football leagues.

The Oklahoma Defenders replaced the Talons as Tulsa's only professional arena football team, playing the CPIFL.

Oklahoma City is home to the governing body of the sport in the United States, USA Softball, which has its headquarters in a complex that includes the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium.

Oklahoma State has the most NCAA national championships of any collegiate team with 34, with the Oklahoma Sooners having 7 NCAA wrestling titles.

Oklahoma was the 21st-largest recipient of medical funding from the federal government in 2005, with health-related federal expenditures in the state totaling $75, 801, 364; immunizations, bioterrorism preparedness, and health education were the top three most funded medical items.

In 2000, Oklahoma ranked 45th in physicians per capita and slightly below the national average in nurses per capita, but was slightly above the national average in hospital beds per 100, 000 people and above the national average in net growth of health services over a twelve-year period.

Oklahoma ranked last among the 50 states in a 2007 study by the Commonwealth Fund on health care performance.

On June 26, 2018, Oklahoma made marijuana legal for medical purposes, making it one of the most conservative states to approve medical marijuana.

Residents of Oklahoma have a lower life expectancy than the U S national average.

Broadcast television in Oklahoma began in 1949 when KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City and KOTV-TV in Tulsa began broadcasting a few months apart.

In 2006, there were more than 500 radio stations in Oklahoma broadcasting with various local or nationally owned networks.

Oklahoma has a few ethnic-oriented TV stations broadcasting in Spanish and Asian languages, and there is some Native American programming.

Transportation in Oklahoma is generated by an anchor system of Interstate Highways, inter-city rail lines, airports, inland ports, and mass transit networks.

In 2008, Interstate 44 in Oklahoma City was Oklahoma's busiest highway, with a daily traffic volume of 123, 300 cars.

Oklahoma is connected to the nation's rail network via Amtrak's Heartland Flyer, its only regional passenger rail line.

Related searches

Oklahoma is a constitutional republic with a government modeled after the federal government of the United States, with executive, legislative, and judicial branches.

Oklahoma has capital punishment as a legal sentence, and the state has had the highest per capita execution rate in the nation.

The Oklahoma judiciary contains two independent courts: a Court of Impeachment and the Oklahoma Court on the Judiciary.

Oklahoma has two courts of last resort: the state Supreme Court hears civil cases, and the state Court of Criminal Appeals hears criminal cases.

Thirty-nine Native American tribal governments are based in Oklahoma, each holding limited powers within designated areas.

Oklahoma has 11 substate districts including the two large Councils of Governments, INCOG in Tulsa and ACOG (Association of Central Oklahoma Governments).

Oklahoma City was the largest city in the United States carried by Republican Donald Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections.

Oklahoma had 598 incorporated places in 2010, including four cities over 100, 000 in population and 43 over 10, 000.

These two Oklahoma teams were heavily favored, playing in their home state I The Oklahoma City venue.

However, in two consecutive stunning upsets, both Oklahoma teams lost to James Madison University out of Harrisonburg, VA.